THIS invention relates to a circuit breaker mechanism, and to circuit breakers employing the mechanism, with a common trip function.
In certain applications employing multiple circuit breakers which are arranged side by side, it is desirable that tripping of one circuit breaker should automatically cause tripping of one or more associated circuit breakers.
This may be required, for example, when a circuit breaker is tripped as a result of an overload on one phase of a multi-phase electrical installation.
Various common trip mechanisms have been proposed. However, existing mechanisms of this kind suffer from limitations in the tripping force which can be applied between adjacent circuit breakers, and the play between the common trip components of adjacent circuit breakers may accumulate, when a number of circuit breakers are interconnected, to a point where tripping becomes slow or unreliable.